The invention pertains to the use of inductive energy storage power processing units for ignition and/or driving in conjunction with plasma sources that are especially tailored for vacuum arc plasmas used in propulsion devices. The stored inductive energy may be used to generate a plasma which may be used to propel or provide thrust control for a device in a gravitation-free environment, or in a fixed orbit about a planet in an atmospheric vacuum, such as outer space.
Pulsed Plasma Thrusters (PPT) are used to provide periodic pulses of thrust for satellites in space. Prior art high voltage PPTs were constructed from coaxial electrodes with a PTFE propellant in a coaxial configuration such as U.S. Pat. No. 6,269,629 by Spanjers, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,295,804 by Burton et al, or in a parallel plate configuration such as U.S. Pat. No. 6,373,023 by Hoskins et al. These prior art PPTs are ignited and driven with high voltages stored in capacitors, with or without an external spark gap initiator. The energy storage of a capacitor may be expressed as (xc2xd)Cv2. Charging of the storage capacitors may be accomplished using high voltage supplies or by low voltage supplies followed by DC-to-DC converters which convert a low voltage into the necessary high voltage to charge the storage capacitor. The voltage stored in the capacitor results in a plasma discharge across the surface of an insulator made from a material such as PTFE (also known as Teflon(copyright)), which results in thermionic surface heating of the PTFE, and high speed discharge of the superheated PTFE particles and related plasma-PTFE byproducts. The superheated PTFE accelerates through an exit aperture, producing a reactive force for pulsed thrust control. Another prior art low voltage PPT uses a conductive propellant such as carbon whereby the ohmic heat generates a surface plasma, which releases particles of superheated carbon at high speed, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,153,976 by Spanjers. The previous examples of prior art used capacitors as a source of energy storage. Attempts to drive plasma sources with inductors have been made in the past but were abandoned due to the need for very high voltages to break-down the vacuum gap and the associated requirement that the electronic switch controlling the inductor must operate very fast and hold-off said high voltage. In the field of plasma assisted physical vapor deposition, a new plasma initiation method was introduced that employed surface breakdown along a metallized insulator separating anode and cathode to reduce the initiation voltage, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,465,793 by Anders. This reference describes a capacitive driver and a pulse-forming network which is charged up to a voltage allowing the surface breakdown to occur, typically in excess of 1000V. The storage capacitor is charged by a voltage supply providing the required 1000V. Inductive energy storage ignition has been used in the past but was not used in connection with the above mentioned low voltage initiation and therefore required the output of very high breakdown voltages, which had to be held off by some kind of switching device making this approach very complicated due to the lack of adequate compact semiconductor devices. The prior art systems using either a storage capacitor charged to a high voltage or inductive energy storage required high speed switching of large voltages, which is difficult to do without incurring switching losses, and also typically restricts or eliminates the use of semiconductor devices because of the high voltage requirements. In addition, the use of capacitors adds a significant amount of mass to the systems and limits the lifetime as high voltage capacitors have been shown to deteriorate with time.
A new class of device is known as a vacuum arc thruster (VAT), which contrasts with the prior art Pulsed Plasma Thruster (PPT) in several ways. The prior art PPT uses a surface discharge, which ablates the insulator material as a propellant, and avoids eroding the electrodes. The acceleration mechanism of the PPT is dominated by a jxc3x97B force. The vacuum arc thruster (VAT) uses the cathode material as the propellant, which forms a low impedance plasma. The acceleration mechanism is dominated by pressure gradients formed by the expanding plasma, in addition to the jxc3x97B force described earlier. The ignition mechanism is also different between a PPT and a VAT. The VAT uses a voltage breakdown across a very small gap, while the PPT uses a surface discharge, which is frequently assisted by a spark plug or even a laser. References to the present invention will refer to a vacuum arc thruster (VAT) to contrast from the prior art pulsed plasma thruster (PPT). In the present invention, the electrodes are the propellant, and the insulator is not consumed by the plasma. The voltage and current characteristics through the plasma discharge are different between the present VAT invention and the prior art PPT. After ignition, the VAT operates for the rest of the pulse at a fairly constant voltage and the current reduces, whereas the voltage and current characteristics of a PPT are the opposite.
What is desired in a VAT is a low mass, low voltage device ( less than 1000V) which uses inductive energy storage rather than capacitive energy storage, which forms a plasma from a conductive layer of material which is formed over an insulator surface, where the conduction layer is a different or the same type of material as used in the cathode, and which provides an electrode geometry which is either parallel plate or coaxial.
A first object of the invention is a vacuum arc thruster which uses inductive energy storage to generate a plasma arc.
A second object of the invention is a vacuum arc thruster in a parallel plate configuration, whereby one of the plates is a cathode electrode, the other plate is-an anode electrode, and an insulating separator is placed between the cathode electrode and the anode electrode. The insulating separator includes a rough surface for the addition of a metallization layer in the region where a plasma may form.
A third object of the invention is a vacuum arc thruster where the metallization layer is formed from the same material used to form the cathode.
A fourth object of the invention is a pulsed plasma thruster in either a coaxial, a planar, or a ring configuration, whereby one of the electrodes is a cathode, the other electrode is an anode, and an insulating coaxial separator is placed between the cathode and the anode. The insulating separator includes a rough surface for the addition of a metallization layer.
A fifth object of the invention is a pulsed plasma thruster where the anode electrodes are chosen from one of the group of materials titanium, copper or gold, the insulators are chosen from the group of materials alumina silicate or alumina, and the cathode electrodes are chosen from one of the group of materials carbon, aluminum, titanium, chromium, iron, yttrium, molybdenum, tantalum, tungsten, lead, bismuth, or uranium.
A sixth object of the invention is a pulsed plasma thruster comprising:
a power source having an anode output and a cathode output, the power source comprising a voltage source in series with an energy storage device in series with a switch, the switch having a terminal coupled to the anode output and a terminal coupled to said cathode output;
a planar plasma thruster including an insulator having two substantially parallel surfaces, a cathode electrode placed on one of said insulator surfaces, an anode electrode placed on other said insulator surface, where the insulator has an area of preferred plasma formation between the anode electrode and the cathode electrode, the preferred plasma formation area having a film of conductive material.
A seventh object of the invention is a pulsed power thruster which uses the magnetic field energy stored in an inductor to create a magnetic field which can be used to steer the particles providing propulsion.
The present invention uses a low voltage DC source, an inductive energy storage device, and a switch circuit to initiate and drive a vacuum arc pulsed plasma thruster. The plasma source is based on an inductive energy storage circuit plasma power unit and thruster head geometry. In the plasma power unit, an inductor is charged through a switch to a first current threshold. When the switch is opened, a voltage peak L(di/dt) is produced, which initiates a plasma arc by first forming microplasmas across the microgaps formed by breaks in a thin conductive surface applied to the surface of an insulating separator positioned between the anode electrode and the cathode electrode. The plurality of initial microplasma sites assists in the initiation of the main plasma discharge. The typical resistance of the separator disposed between anode electrode and cathode electrode which can either be a metal film coated insulator or a solid material of high resistivity is xcx9c100 xcexa9-1kxcexa9 from anode to cathode. One class of material for the separator is alumina silicate, which may optionally be film-coated with a conductive material of the same or different material than the cathode electrode. Porosity of this separator and/or small gaps in the conducting area generate micro-plasmas by high electric field breakdown. These micro-plasmas expand into the surrounding space and allow current to flow directly from the cathode to the anode along a lower resistance plasma discharge path (xcx9c10""s of mxcexa9) than the initial, thin film, surface discharge path. The current that was flowing in the solid-state switch (for xe2x89xa61 xcexcs) is fully switched to the vacuum arc load after the solid state switch is opened. Typical currents of xcx9c100 A (for xcx9c100-500 xcexcs) are conducted with voltages of xcx9c25-30 V. Consequently, most of the magnetic energy stored in the inductor is deposited into the plasma pulse. The combination of the PPU with a variable low voltage control signal is converted into a sufficient trigger signal for the semiconductor switch. This low voltage control signal in turn controls the opening and closing of the semiconductor switch and thereby the energy stored in the inductor, which in turn determines the energy delivered into the plasma. This method leads to an effective xe2x80x9cthrottlexe2x80x9d for the propulsion system. Throttle control may be done either by changing the repetition rate of the current pulse, or by changing the duty cycle of the current pulse applied to the energy storage element or inductor.
The combination of the PPU with additional semiconductor switches allows for distribution of the output energy to more than one thruster head while using the same inductor, thereby enabling a low mass, multiple output system. The expanding plasma from the thruster heads is providing a thrust depending on the plasma velocity and mass flow rate of the cathode material. Therefore the thruster heads have to be designed to offer a large amount of cathode material (propellant) for consumption in order to operate for a long period of time. The condition of the conductive separator is essential for reliable performance of the thruster and needs to be taken into account.
One geometry for the separator is a planar geometry whereby the thruster head consists of three sheets of material stacked onto each other. A first sheet forms a cathode, a second sheet forms the anode and the third sheet disposed between the anode sheet and the cathode sheet forms a separator sheet comprising a material with bulk insulating or conductive properties with a thin film conductive layer applied in the desired area of the plasma formation.
Another geometry is a tubular design, which consists of three different disk shaped sheets of material (cathode, separator, anode) which are stacked onto each other where the plasma ignition takes place inside the tube with the plasma expanding on the anode side. The separator disk is disposed between the cathode and anode, and the inside surface may be coated with a thin film conductive layer.
Optionally with either design, a grid may be placed on the anode side of the thruster and held either at the anode potential, or a separate potential to steer the particles.
Also optionally with either geometry, the inductor used for energy storage may be placed around the exit aperture of the thruster to steer particles for maximum thrust.